by Guest: ”Marat”
Dec. 12, 2024

Forty years ago, Ronald Reagan won a second term as U.S. President in the 1984 election. The democratic candidate, Walter Mondale, received only 13 electoral votes (having won only his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia), while Reagan received 525 – the most electoral votes in American history. It was the greatest presidential victory in American history (bar elections involving the Founding Fathers), with Reagan winning 49 states. Reagan is inarguably the American president with the greatest impact in the past hundred years, challenged only by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Deregulation, tax cuts, Christian politics – the core principles of the GOP that we know today were rooted in Reagan’s ideology. In many ways, we are still living in Reagan’s America.

This year, we saw Donald Trump win his second term as President in what was predicted to be a scarily close race (with some even predicting a Harris victory). Trump won 80 electoral votes over Harris. A month has passed since the election, and while the fact that Trump has won has become accepted, it was a great shock to many on the night of November 5th and the day after. At this school especially, there were high hopes for a Harris victory.

The legacy of Reagan in the Republican Party is now fiercely challenged by the power of Trump and the MAGA Movement. Reagan and Trump are both polar opposites and closely related figures in many ways. Both men fundamentally flipped Republican values and policies at their foundation and both now hold claim to landslide victories in the elections that led them to a second presidential term. Both also have extremely polarizing perspectives based on how you ask: opinions on either president range from the Antichrist to the savior of America, oftentimes being either one or the other. However, as there is not enough space for two separate legacies to exist in the GOP, the fact that both presidents have left enormous impacts on the Republican Party has led to conflict between the MAGA Movement and Reaganites. Trump’s protectionism and isolationism from China directly clashes with Reagan’s doctrine of peace through strength in his battle against the Soviet Union. The former’s notable ”no war” stance (which was repeated several times by Trump voters throughout the months leading up to the election) spits directly at the core tenets of Reagan’s foreign policy. 

While Trump and Reagan do have many differences in character and policy, there is no doubt that Trump has captivated the Republican Party much like Reagan did in his years. Just like Reaganites had dominated the Republican Party for thirty years after Reagan’s presidency up until Trump’s rise to fame, we may very well be seeing a new era of Republican politics under the policies of Trumpism. Anti-Trump Republicans have become deemed as RINOs (Republicans In Name Only); the party may very well simply be the Trump Party in these days. Trump may very well be the modern day Reagan. Even the Democrats center their campaigns around Trump: in both Biden’s and Harris’ campaigns, I remember one of the core arguments I heard was that Biden and Harris weren’t Trump, and that was enough of an argument to vote Democrat for many people. 

In 1992, Bill Clinton prevailed over George H.W. Bush, the U.S. President from 1988-1992 who had been Reagan’s vice president, to become President of the United States. Clinton would also win in 1996 as well, becoming the first two-term Democratic president since Harry Truman half a century earlier. Clinton had based his campaign on a model of appeal to the center: the New Democrats, as they would be called, enacted conservative fiscal policies and kept left-wing social policies in order to appeal to the center-right and win the election. Clinton’s pragmatism and willingness to compromise is what led the country into eight years of Democratic administration for the first time in 50 years.

In England, a parallel of American history happened in this same period. Margaret Thatcher, considered to be the British Ronald Reagan (and as equally polarizing as him), led the country as Prime Minister from 1979-1990, and in this period introduced her brand of free market economics (which became Thatcherism) to the UK. From 1997-2007, Tony Blair, the leader of the Labour Party (basically the British Democrats), presided over the nation with his New Labour policies, which replaced Labour’s policy of nationalization with free market economics in order to gain the popular support of the British people. In England, too, the left wing traded in economic policies that were considered cornerstone left-wing ideology in exchange for public appeal.

In the cases of both Clinton and Blair, in response to disastrous defeats on a national scale against the right-wing, they made compromises and appeared more centrist to win elections. Perhaps the Democrats shall do this again in response to Trump’s victory. While Reagan’s victory looks far stronger on paper than it does for Trump’s in the 1984 election as compared to the 2024 election, this election is still an equally traumatic defeat for the Democrats. The House, Senate, presidency, and Supreme Court have all been lost to Republicans, and nearly every state shifted to the right in this election. I do not want to spend all this time writing about why Harris lost, as there is a lot to consider, but there is one main point I’d like to make.

The right has adapted to the age of the internet much better than the Democrats have. Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, Candace Owens, Charlie Kirk – these people are quite famous on the internet for their right wing ideologies, while at the same time I can’t name a single left-wing media personality. I remember the Midway wrote an article about the ”manosphere pipeline” a year ago, an online community that promoted toxic masculinity and misogyny. There is an important lesson to be drawn from this: for whatever reason, the right wing have gained far more traction online than any left-wing influencers have. It has been well reported that this year has seen young men shifting to the right farther than ever before – it is because of this right-wing presence on the internet that this demographic shift has happened. Not only on the internet has this right-wing appeal been the case; in person, too, this is true. We must remember that the average voter values aesthetic and character just as much as they do policy. Realistically speaking, the right-wing is far better in this field than the Democrats are. ”Make America Great Again” is one of the strongest slogans active today because of its simplicity and appeal to the average American, and ”Sleepy Joe” is a debilitating injury on Biden’s reputation simply because of how catchy it is. I, myself, have made the mistake of thinking Biden is just an old incompetent fart simply because of the antagonistic media I have seen about him that has frankly surrounded a lot of popular media.

To take power in their respective states, the 20th century fascists in Italy, Germany, and Japan utilized images and slogans of strength and power rather than argumentative reason or rhetoric. It is from this that the Democrats should learn their lesson: in many cases, aesthetic and emotion will win out over logic. The Democrats should work just as much on image as they do on policy, for there is no point in effective policy if it is not communicated as such to the masses in the first place. Communication and pathos must come before logos. The iconic phrase of ”Make America Great Again” has no reason or explanation behind it: it is a simple appeal to nostalgia and patriotism. We live in a democracy, and so in order to win elections we must first appeal to the majority before enacting our policies. The Republicans have learned this lesson better than anybody, and they dominate the internet – and the media – in a much more powerful and intense way than Democrats do. The Republicans rely far more on outwardly strong looking leadership and major figures rather than the Democrats, who instead focus just on policy.

Realistically, we are all living in the age of the Republicans. The War on Drugs that started under Nixon continues to dominate low income communities, the wealth inequality that started soaring under Reaganomics has continued to rise with no end in sight, the Middle East has been ruthlessly crippled and destabilized by Bush’s War on Terror, and Trump’s political victories have caused some of the most important events of the past few years. Meanwhile, policies of Democratic presidents have been repeatedly eroded or turned into dust by Republican politicians. Harris’ loss to Trump has simply been the latest in a long string of Democrat defeats since the 1970s. I, myself, am left-wing, and felt truly frustrated at Harris’ loss. But the truth is that we did not lose arbitrarily, and for whatever reason the majority of Americans have picked Trump over Harris. If we want to win in the future, we have to make some serious changes to the party and to our policies. Should we move in the direction of Clinton and Blair and appeal to the center to win? Or shall we create something new and radical that will be passionate and captivating? I do not support any specific route: I just think, looking at the road ahead, we need to make many changes. I am unsure of whether the Democrats will take major steps to reinvent themselves even after Harris’ loss. That being said, this election was a total defeat, but at the same time it being a total defeat is the strongest benefit we have gained from it. Because only after death can there be rebirth.

What I think we can learn personally as Lab students from this is that we need to broaden our perspectives. The greatest flaw of this student body is that there is not a great tolerance for opposing political values. Because we go to this school that is pretty much entirely left-wing (I remember as a fifth grader when I thought everyone was a democrat because of Lab) it’s hard for us to learn how to tackle opposite political views. I’ve seen students who support Trump getting verbally attacked or disregarded because of their political views, as Oliver Wilson talked about in his previous article. I don’t agree with libertarianism or most right-wing policies at all, but we must not disregard Republicans. I’m not saying you should pat anybody on the back for supporting Trump, but we must make an honest attempt to understand right-wing supporters. Disregarding them as homophobes, fascists, or racists is what caused Democratic defeat in the first place – because we were not willing to accept that they have legitimate reasons why they voted for Trump over Harris. Denouncing these citizens as any kind of bigots or authoritarians takes away from the nuance of their reasoning for voting for Trump. The majority are people just like us who believed they had real reasons to support Trump, and we must try to understand their reasoning if we want to win in the future.

Behold, the dying Democratic party! The days of Roosevelt and Kennedy are long gone; their strength is fleeting and their staunchest allies are turning away from them. This is truly their darkest hour. 

Let us face it: the Democratic Party is bleeding out. And it will collapse if there is not a significant change made, for this election is a reminder that belief in the left-wing is dwindling in America.

by Oliver Wilson
Nov. 12, 2024

Maybe you still just don’t get it. Trump won every swing state, every ethnicity voted in higher margins, and Illinois shifted 10 POINTS to the right this year. Many are unsure of how this could have happened, but I’m not here to gloat about the win. I’m not here to brag. I’m not here to shove it in your face, but we need to recognize that this change in national sentiment against an unpopular candidate for what the MSM wanted you to believe is an even more unpopular one is some form of national revival that can be attributed only to the failings in the message of the democratic party. Kamala was better funded, and the polls all skewed in her favor, but a silent awakening was happening, and most were ignorant of it.

The truth is that the left has rejected most Americans. It has rejected me, my friends, and the youth while leaving even its own political base when unable to deliver on its promises of unity, cohesion, higher standards of living, and peace.

From personal experience, I’ve found the hypocrisy in the liberal message enough to drive any reasonable person to indifference. At my school, 91.6% of students voted for Kamala in a mock election, while only 6% supported Trump. In such an echo chamber, you might imagine the challenges I faced. You also might expect this would result in simple childish comments or silly remarks about my opinions. But what I experienced went well beyond that. People are confused as to why I made this website, but I’m not: in the face of my free speech and fiscal views alone, pictures of my house and address were shamelessly disseminated by a transgender student in a photojournalism class, even in the presence of teachers. In the hallways, I’ve overheard people making vile threats about my family, like swearing to ”rape his mother,” uttered casually among unfazed peers. This person held their life against me, threatening to hurt themself if I didn’t take this website down because they felt threatened by an article I had written about the importance of free speech; it’s still there if you want to check it out. And just yesterday, I was told to ”fuck myself” by another student in journalism. Yet, the left has consistently claimed to be the party of diversity and tolerance. It’s ironic, especially because some of the worst comes from students in journalism who admire the mainstream media, and I can’t help but feel that I, as well as many other young people in the nation, are sick and tired of it.

a significant part of the struggle in this election was the frustration people have with the left’s war on identity, hypocrisy, and their campaign of lies. This includes the left’s criticism of Donald Trump as a ‘threat to democracy’ and their exploitation of a false narrative about the right’s plan for an ‘imminent revocation of rights.’

The left has preached ‘inclusion’ for longer than most can remember, yet reveals its disgusting bias in its intolerance of me and my friends. Their campaign on ‘inclusion’ in identity politics has alienated well-reasoned people by doing the exact opposite. The left declares those who are not precisely aligned ‘racist’ and ‘bigoted,’ an ironically non-inclusive mindset. The left’s identity politics have pitted people against each other, explaining why liberals have such a visceral reaction to my existence and why trans students felt embraced to voice their fear of a website that has nothing to do with them. Other instances when students’ ideologies were demonized include treachery by teachers who perceive themselves to be utilitarian. Teachers have skewed my grade because of a conservative opinion. One friend shared with me that their college counselor proudly declared their relief upon finding out my friend was not conservative. But in addition to the polarization of political ideology, identity politics have divided people by race, too. A kind of societal quasi-point system has been initiated to determine how ”privileged” one is, and I’ll be frank: being a white man hurts your score-a lot. 
Hence, the left has alienated white men who are just trying to live and balance things like their economic well-being in the voting booth. With the proposal of policies such as reparations and their claim to the moral high ground, as a white man, the left ensures we are either meant to feel sorry for our existence, or else we are morally reprehensible.

Whites and men are fed up with being demonized, and every other demographic is fed up with being lied to. There have been so many flawed and dishonest attempts by the left to win over the American people unfairly: they claimed they would save the people from Trump, who would revoke women’s rights, but then not changing a THING over the last four years to reinstate Roe v Wade. They lied that the border was first secure and then admitted it was not secure, but did not hold Kamala accountable by instead blaming the problem on Trump. They lied about their economic policies, laughing in the face of working people who have suffered the consequences of their inflation over the last four years, but shill it off as corporate greed…how spooky. They fiercely gaslit the people about Biden’s mental health. They sheepishly insisted that Biden was okay, until everyone could see that he was not. With these listed examples and countless others, the left’s credibility had reached an all-time low. So, when the same people screamed that Donald Trump would ”steal democracy,” it made the people’s choice to vote for him even easier. However, threats are just threats, and none of the things they swore would take place under a Trump presidency in 2016 happened. Ultimately, lying has consequences. This election marked the first time a Republican won the popular vote in 20 years, and the most notable shift was among Gen Z-once considered the left’s stronghold and supposed ”brat army.” This surge in support can be attributed to a widespread exhaustion with hypocritical identity politics. Young people are tired of division, economic struggles, and being labeled as evil. They wanted change, and I am confident Donald Trump will bring that change.